422 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



called the chesnut bean, was lately found by Mr. 

 Cunningham upon the banks of the Brisbane river, 

 in Moreton Bay, New South Wales. It is the pro- 

 duce of a large and handsome tree, which belongs to 

 a new and undescribed genus, though in some parti- 

 culars it seems allied to Robinia. The leaves are 

 pinnated, upon long footstalks; the leaflets entire, 

 and there is a terminal one. The flowers, which are 

 papilionaceous, are produced at the bases of the 

 leaves in considerable numbers, not unlike those of 

 the Robinia hispida. These flowers are succeeded 

 by pods, very large, hard, and of a brownish, or cin- 

 namon colour. These pods contain a variable num- 

 ber of roundish seeds or beans, compressed on the 

 one side, and covered with a thin loose shell of a 

 chesnut colour; when roasted, they have very much 

 the flavour of chesnuts; and in a country where 

 edible fruits of indigenous growth are few, they are 

 at least a curiosity. 



We have thus completed a rapid sketch of the 

 various fruits of the world. As the commerce of 

 mankind increases, the number of those valuable sub- 

 stances which we may secure to ourselves by cultiva- 

 tion will increase also; and, at the same time, we 

 shall diffuse our own vegetable productions over the 

 globe. In New South Wales the gardens of the 

 settlers are rilled with the plants which they culti- 

 vated in their native country. Colonization univer- 

 sally produces this good; and thus the intercourse 

 of mankind may in time make the world one vast 

 garden, in which all the blessings of a bounteous 

 Providence shall be naturalized, as far as climate, 

 or the science of man, can render those plants com- 

 mon to all, which were originally the property of a few. 



